Cantankerous Four
by Asrielle
Summary: More detailed than the chapters in "This and That," though equally disconnected from one chapter to the next. A series of one-shots.
1. Chapter 1

This popped into my head and I could not stop myself from writing it. I should admit that I have no idea where it's headed, or if this is all there will be. Still, it didn't seem to fit in with my other Marauders story, so I've given it a home all its own.

I imagine the boys to be in fifth year; this is not, however, due to any strict chronological research on my part, but simply because they seem to always be in fifth year when I imagine them. I apologize in advance for any dissonances from canon, but please remember, this is all in good fun.

As usual, J.K. Rowling et. al. own Harry Potter and all related characters, environments, and Hogwarts library books. I am just having fun in the world she created.

* * *

**Cantankerous Four**

"'From forth the fatal loins'...? Moony, I didn't know you had it in you!" Sirius clapped his friend on the back and ignored the flush that rose in Remus's cheeks as he yelled across the common room to James. "James! Come see what Remus is doing in his free time! He's reading about _loins_!" Sirius laughed heartily as most of the Gryffindor students turned to face him and Remus. He clapped his friend on the back again as James hurried over from where he'd been playing with the Golden Snitch. James released the Snitch and let it zoom around the room as he leaned over the couch in front of the common room fire. He mouthed the words well-known to those more versed in literature than he was, and burst out laughing. Remus tried to sink as low in his seat on the common room couch as he could without falling onto the floor.

"Remus! You cad!" James slumped against Sirius as they continued to laugh, clutching their sides.

"Really?" Remus muttered, closing the thin book and staring into the fire, determined not to look at any of the other students in the common room.

"Loins!" James exclaimed joyously, as though Christmas had come a few months early. "Remus! Loins!"

"What's this ruckus?" Peter asked. He had just walked through the portrait hole into the common room, carrying a rather large stack of books. He deposited them unceremoniously onto the low table in front of the couch; there were so many that they immediately slid out of their neat pile, a few making dull thuds as they hit the hearthrug. Peter sat down with a great sigh in one of the squashy armchairs nearby, looking at James and Sirius, who were still chortling, as though they'd completely lost their minds.

Unfortunately, neither James nor Sirius seemed to be able to stop laughing long enough to explain.

"I'm reading 'Romeo and Juliet'," Remus muttered to the fire. "They seem to think the prologue is especially naughty."

"Fatal loins?" Peter asked. Remus remembered suddenly that Peter had had a girlfriend last year who was deeply, if not slightly unhealthily, obsessed with Shakespeare. Peter had spent the three-month span of that relationship spending more time memorizing various bits of Polly's favorite plays than he had on his studies.

"Not so much the fatal as the loins," Remus said weakly, looking over at Peter. They grinned helplessly at each other as James and Sirius collapsed with laughter once again.

"If you don't mind," said a clear and slightly annoyed voice two tables away from them. James immediately stopped laughing and straightened so quickly that he bashed his head against Remus's, who yelped. All four boys turned their heads to look at the red-headed girl sitting near them. "Some of us are trying to study?"

"Sorry, Lily," Remus said sheepishly, massaging the side of his head. James actually looked down at the ground as though he was a young boy who'd just been caught stealing; Sirius hiccuped.

"It's hardly your fault for reading, Remus," Lily said kindly. "However, these two complete baboons -" she gestured at Sirius and James, choosing not to finish her sentence.

"Baboons, are we?" Sirius said, glaring. James flapped his arms frantically at Sirius, trying to make him be quiet. Remus bit back the urge to laugh; James looked as though he was trying to take flight.

"I'm afraid so," Lily replied, her voice icy.

"There's no rule that says we aren't allowed a bit of fun," Sirius said.

"Yelling 'loins' across the common room is your idea of fun?" Lily sneered. "Well, whatever allows you your 'bit of fun'." She picked up her parchment, quill, and books, and stalked toward the girls' dormitories.

"She said loins," James whispered reverently, staring after Lily. After a moment's silence, he turned to look at Sirius; they mouthed the word at each other and erupted in fresh peals of laughter.

Remus looked over at Peter, hoping for some small support, but Peter was laughing too this time. Remus surreptitiously slid the play under a cushion of the couch, reminding himself not to read anything but textbooks in front of James and Sirius ever again. An image came unbidden to his mind of an older Remus sitting rigidly between James and Sirius, holding himself perfectly still so as not to get them started on his nose, perhaps, or his (what they lovingly called) fancy dress hobbies, of which reading was one and, apparently, all of which they clearly found completely ridiculous.

_As is that image, _he thought sternly to himself.

Resolutely, he pulled the play back out from its would-be hiding place. He opened it up and began to read once more, ignoring James and Sirius. Remus had a feeling this would become his best defense against their unruliness: crack open a book and feign temporary deafness.

He'd only turned one page when their laughter began to die down. James vaulted the couch and sat on Remus's left, Sirius on the right. Peter took a few deep breaths, calming down, then reached for one of the books he'd brought in with him.

"What are all those for, Wormy?" Sirius asked, looking at the books with his nose wrinkled slightly in disgust.

"Flitwick's essay," Peter said simply. Remus looked over his own book at the pile Peter had brought into the common room: _Moste Notable Charms; Charms for the Witless; _and _Common Household Charms_ were the three full titles he could see. A rough count of the books led Remus to believe there were at least ten in the slumped-over pile.

"Oh yeah, we have to do that, don't we, James?" Sirius said lightly.

"I suppose," James said. He had leaned his head back and was watching the Snitch circle the room.

"What?" Peter spluttered. "You haven't even started it yet? I've been working on it for a week and it's due tomorrow!"

"Easy, Pete," James said, "it's only an essay."

"And it's Flitwick, it's not like he's going to give us the Eye like McGonagall does all the time," Sirius added.

"McGonagall only gives you the Eye because you're almost always up to something in her class," Remus said, smirking.

"Didn't hear you complaining when we had Frederick McIntosh sprout all that nose hair, though, did we, James?" Sirius said.

"Well, you got us out homework when you did that," Peter pointed out. "Plus he called Remus a half-breed."

"For all McIntosh knows, I'm a talking kneazle," Remus said dryly.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter.

"His glasses _are_ rather thick," James said, self-consciously pushing his own spectacles higher on his nose.

"Blind as a bat and twice as dumb," Sirius agreed. He idly picked up _Charms for the Witless_ and flipped through it. "Well, Prongs, as much as I hate to admit it..."

"It's time to start working," James said, finishing Sirius's sentence. "I'll get our stuff." He vaulted over the couch again and jogged over to the staircase for the boys' dormitories.

"What about you, Remus? Or are you too busy reading about loins -" Sirius snorted - "to write the essay?"

Remus rolled his eyes and looked at Sirius. "I finished it earlier," he said. At these words, Peter looked up hopefully.

"Oh, Remus, would you help me with mine? Please? Only I've been writing it all week, and you're so much better at Charms -" Peter bit his lower lip and stared at Remus, looking distinctively squinty-eyed. Remus wondered if Peter was attempting to look innocent and needy; he'd achieved, Remus rather thought, a slightly deranged expression instead.

"Of course," Remus said. He tossed _Romeo and Juliet_ onto the table and began to rummage through the other books in the pile.


	2. Chapter 2

It all belongs to J.K. Rowling. Please note, I used some of her phrasing from _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, _Chapter 10, to describe the map's actions, because only she could write such a thing properly.

Please review.

* * *

**The Birth of an Era**

Remus eyed the mold in the bottom of the bathtub in the prefects' bathroom. It looked sentient.

He prodded it with his wand, hoping he hadn't sneaked into the bathroom after midnight under James's Invisibility Cloak just to have to enter into a battle with sentient mold. It squelched. Remus winced; he was still achy from the last transformation and he'd just been released from the hospital wing a few hours earlier. Sometimes he wondered if Dumbledore hadn't named him prefect just so he could have a long, hot bath after bad transformations. Remus very much doubted that Dumbledore's sole focus in life was how to make Remus Lupin's life easier. Then again, the headmaster _had _built a house and planted an enormous, dangerous tree just to make Remus's life easier. Remus was rather certain, however, that the building of the Shrieking Shack and the planting of the Whomping Willow were actions taken more for the safety of his fellow students than for his own ease of use.

If he died while fighting sentient mold in the prefects' bathroom, it wouldn't much matter how easy his life had been.

Remus prodded the mold again. It squelched again.

_I can't be found dead in just my dressing gown and pants_, Remus thought.

He wondered how much of the school would be left if he tried a cleaning spell on the potentially sentient mold. He decided, being a Gryffindor and therefore brave about even silly things like battling mold, to give it a try.

A wave of the wand later and the mold was (mostly) gone, Vanished to wherever it was that Vanished things went. Remus breathed a sigh of relief, squinted at the remaining smear of mold, and chose to chance it.

* * *

"What in Merlin's name took you so long?" Sirius said the instant Remus stepped through the portrait hole of the Gryffindor common room, scrubbed to a shine and feeling markedly better than he had when he left the hospital wing earlier that night.

"There was this mold," Remus said. "Let me put on real clothes, all right?" He nodded to James and Peter, in their usual places by the fire. James nodded back, but Peter was fast asleep, his head leaned back against the armchair he was sitting in. Remus saw a thin trail of drool hanging from Peter's open mouth, shining in the firelight. Peter snored loudly once, twice, three times. Sirius walked over and plugged his friend's nose; as Remus walked toward the boys' dormitories, he heard a loud snort and a yelp – Peter had been awakened.

A few minutes later, Remus jogged down the stairs, this time in regular pajamas, holding a sheaf of parchment, his quill, and a bottle of ink. He joined his friends at the fire, sitting on the threadbare but still rather squashy couch, as usual.

"Right," James said. "Now that Moony's back in top form, what have we got?"

Remus shuffled through the pile of parchment and selected a single, crisp sheet that had been folded in half. He unfolded it, tapped it with his wand, and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

At once, thin ink lines began to spread like a spider's web on the parchment, all originating from where Remus's wand touched it. The four watched, enthralled, as the lines continued to move about the parchment; they all grinned when the large, curling words in green ink formed across the top:

_THE MARAUDER'S MAP_

_Presents itself humbly to Mssr. Moony_

_And kindly asks him not to accidentally_

_Leave it in the library._

"Still works, then," James breathed.

"It's bloody brilliant," Sirius said proudly. "_We're _bloody brilliant."

"I thought I'd die from having to wait all week to see it," Peter whispered.

"Give us a go, mate," James said, and held out his hand.

"Mischief managed," Remus said quickly, and they all watched the lines disappear. He looked at James. "Leave it in the library, would I?"

"Well, if you were going to leave it anywhere -" James began, interrupted by Sirius.

"-It would definitely be the library," Sirius said. He gave a short bark of laughter at Remus's bemused expression.

James took the map.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Once again, the lines spread outward, this time from the tip of James's wand:

_THE MARAUDER'S MAP_

_Presents itself humbly to Mssr. Prongs_

_And kindly requests that he_

_Not use it to soak up the spilled perfume_

_Of his ginger-haired lover_

_Again._

This earned Sirius a punch on the arm from James.

"Well, it's true, you did almost grab it that one time when we'd first started -" Sirius said, assuming an expression of deep heartbreak.

"You put it up to this," James said. "I'll have your guts for this if she ever sees it."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "My turn, then, if you don't mind."

The map asked Sirius not to give it fleas.

"You bloody berks!" Sirius said, rolling with laughter. Peter forced his friend to sober up long enough to say "mischief managed" before he snatched the map out of Sirius's hands.

_THE MARAUDER'S MAP_

_Presents itself humbly to Mssr. Wormtail_

_And kindly asks that he_

_Try not to smear butterbeer_

_Or cheese on its fragile skin._

Peter giggled, setting Sirius off into gales of laughter once again.

"Well mates," James said proudly, grabbing the map once Peter had cleared it. "This is the best magic we've ever done."

"We should celebrate the success!" Sirius shouted happily, drawing a panicked look from Peter, who begged him to be quiet as it was the middle of the night.

"Maybe we should look inside and check that it actually works before we open any bottles of champagne," Remus said dryly.

"I was thinking more firewhisky, but you're on," Sirius said fairly.

James tapped the map again, scowled at Sirius as he read its message, then turned it over. His scowl melted into a rather mischievous grin.

"James Potter, the cat that ate the canary," Remus said, leaning over to see the map. "_Perfect_. Look, there we are. And -" he pointed at a place on the other end of the parchment - "there's Dumbledore, pacing in his office."

"Lily," James said piteously, pointing. "She looks so much closer here than in real life." Remus struggled not to roll his eyes, but couldn't suppress a laugh when he caught Sirius doing the same.

"We _are_ magnificent," Sirius said, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back against the couch. "Truly."

"We are the most incredible wizards ever to live," Peter said. "Except Dumbledore," he added hastily.

"I don't know about that," Remus said, fretting at the sleeves of his pajamas. "I had to talk myself up to do a household spell just to get rid of some mold."

"Mold?" Sirius and James looked up from the map simultaneously, both with eyebrows raised.

"It looked...sentient." Remus grinned halfheartedly.

"I am going to let this moment go to waste because I am too happy about our map," Sirius said, affecting an angelic expression that he couldn't quite pull off.

Peter giggled again. "It's all right," he assured Remus, his mouth going all twisty the way it always did when he was trying hard not to crack a smile. "I'm rubbish at household spells too."

"It squelched, you see," Remus sad in his defense.

"Too right, Sirius," James said, though he was looking at Remus. "This is too good a moment to spoil by creating a memory of that time we made fun of Moony for his fear of squelchy mold."

"Would that go in the same file as 'that time we made fun of Remus for reading a book that included the word _loins_' or 'that time we made fun of Remus for spending an entire Saturday in the library'?" Sirius asked solemnly.

"We may need to form an entirely new category," James said. He reached out and ruffled Remus's hair; Remus retaliated by tossing his bottle of ink at James, who caught it just before it would have smashed into the floor.

Peter yawned widely.

"All right mates," James said. "Off to bed we go, can't have Sirius dozing off in Transfiguration, can we?"

"Oh, what would my mistress McGonagall say," Sirius croaked in a spooky imitation of a house elf.

"She'd say, 'down on your knees, Mr. Black, and -'"

"Please stop there," Remus interrupted. "I'll have nightmares of _that _on top of the mold attacking me while I sleep."

"On the bright side," Peter said, standing up, "if you die in the night you won't have to take O.W.L.s at the end of the year."

"Tempting," Remus said, collecting the supplies he'd brought into the common room and heading for the stairs. "But I'd just as soon have a good night's peaceful sleep as die. Or have nightmares of McGonagall and Sirius."

"One man's nightmare is another man's sweetest dream," Sirius said wickedly.

James was the last to go up the stairs, trailing behind the others, staring at a particular dot on the map he'd helped create. He wondered if Lily would let him carry her books to Transfiguration the next day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Revenge Gone Awry**

"Did you know that Americans have an entire holiday dedicated to eating?" Sirius asked from under his bed, sounding very muffled.

"Yes I did," Remus replied from his place in the middle of his own bed. He was surrounded by a thick pile of parchment, textbooks, ink bottles, and quills, and did not seem to have noticed that one ink bottle had fallen over and was beginning to stain his pillow with an oily-looking combination of red, blue, and green ink.

"Why couldn't we have something like that?" Sirius continued, his bottom wriggling as he tried to get further under his bed.

"Have you lost something, or are you trying to hide from Philomena March again?" James said as he entered the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, tugging his robes over his head and loosening his red and gold tie.

"It's a little bit of both, I think," Remus said briskly.

"Are you aware that your ink has spilled onto your pillow?" James said. "And there is also a bit of ink on your nose. What on earth are you doing homework for?"

Remus, having become suddenly very busy siphoning ink back into the bottle while simultaneously attempting to rub the ink off his nose, did not answer.

"Eureka!" Sirius shouted, causing Remus to jump and tip the ink bottle again. As Remus grumbled several not-so-polite words in Sirius's general direction, Sirius, bottom still wriggling, backed out from under his bed holding what looked like a moldy cockroach.

"Erm...what?" James asked, cocking his head at the item.

"Cockroach Cluster left from last spring," Sirius said, giving the candy a tentative sniff. "I've been saving it for a special occasion."

After a pause in which James attempted to pretend he understood Sirius's reasoning at saving a piece of chocolate for a year, under his bed, no less, James chose to repeat his earlier statement. "What?"

"Have you nothing in that head, James Potter?" Sirius said in a frighteningly good impression of James's mother.

"I've got one or two things in there knocking about," James replied, going for a highly affronted look but mostly achieving a _there is a year-old Cockroach Cluster stuck in my nose_ look.

"Dearest friend of friends – no offense Remus," Sirius shot over his shoulder as he went to James, waving the chocolate about in James's face.

"Mm hmm," Remus replied, not paying the slightest bit of attention.

"Dearest friend of friends, James Potter, this is for Peeves," Sirius said, his eyes shining like those of a puppy that has just seen a new squeaky toy.

"Oh sweet Merlin, what has Peeves done?" James asked.

"Peeves has sung a rather inappropriate song about Philomena and I," Sirius said.

"'Me,'" Remus corrected absent-mindedly.

"Oho! He does listen in after all. Come friend, let us take this to a more private locale, where prying ears may not hear," Sirius said, making as though to leave the room.

"Oh _fine_," Remus said, shutting his book. "I'm in, but only because I was getting a headache anyway."

"Perhaps the ink fumes..." James suggested delicately, waving a finger in a circle near his head. "Gone a bit wonky in your old age, Remus."

Remus rolled his eyes and joined the mischievous huddle.

"I suppose you want us to ask Peter in on it too," James said wearily.

"Can't," Sirius said sharply. "He's in the hospital wing again."

"Again? He was just there last week! What is it now?" James asked.

"Poppycock Potion. Snape slipped it into his pumpkin juice at lunch. He's sprouting orange petals and keeps crowing," Sirius said, looking pained. "We'll have to remedy that with vengeance...but not today. I haven't fathomed a plan yet."

"Formulated," Remus corrected.

"I'll fathom what I like, you," Sirius said, poking Remus in the chest.

"Peeves," James reminded them.

"Right. Peeves. So I take this -" he held up the Cockroach Cluster again, waving it about - "and I pelt it at Filch."

"Wait, Filch? Why is Filch being brought into this?" Remus asked, looking slightly panicked. He absently brushed his Prefect badge, pinned neatly to the collar of his shirt.

"Oh Remus, you used to be so clever," Sirius said in a mournful tone. "Now you just flap about like a worried hen."

"Your influence has turned my brain to oatmeal," Remus replied, nodding sagely, though his mouth twitched.

"That and the ink fumes..." James said. "Makes a man a bit mad, I suppose."

"Indeed," Sirius said. "Filch is in on this because Filch will call out the Bloody Baron if he thinks Peeves is throwing moldy chocolates at him. And the Bloody Baron will force Peeves to behave. Is it making sense yet?" Sirius asked, knocking lightly on Remus's head.

"Now there's chocolate in your hair," James commented.

"Perfect. I imagine I've never looked better," Remus said wryly.

"Well, there was that one time when you tried to kiss Evelyn Simms under the mistletoe and misjudged the angle and ended up planting a wet one on her eye -" Sirius began.

"That's quite enough of _that _memory, thank you," Remus said, attempting to wipe the melted chocolate from his hair with no success.

"But if there's melted chocolate in your hair, then our plan is moot," Sirius said, falling rather dramatically onto his bed.

"What?" James asked, utterly bewildered.

Sirius silently held up the hand with which he had been brandishing the Cockroach Cluster. All that remained was a melted, goopy puddle with bits of mold and a few hairs that looked suspiciously like that of a dog.

"Perhaps next year," said Remus.

"I'll save an entire bag," Sirius promised.


End file.
